The background: Funny how pop and retro-"soul" in the UK are dominated by women while grime is all about the boys (Tinie, Tinchy, Chipmunk et al). It's nothing short of sexual apartheid. We've had some artists trying to make a name for themselves in the harsh world of Brit-hop over the years, from Lady Sovereign to Lady Chann, but none have quite stuck. And the girls who have achieved a modicum of critical or commercial success – Ms Dynamite or Speech Debelle – have been a bit joyless and serious. We haven't produced a single lady with the verve and lyrical skills of Nicki Minaj, anyone that larger-than-life, smart or, well, ingeniously silly.

Enter Melesha O Garro aka Lady Leshurr, a 23-year-old Midlander armed with a freaky-squeaky voice and an arsenal of metaphors she tends to fire at listeners like the spawn of Missy Elliot and Minnie Mouse wielding a cartoon gun. Guess what they're calling her? That's right: the UK Nicki Minaj. And although we haven't heard her do anything as inventively waspish as Roman's Revenge, the FQ (Feisty Quotient) is high and the pace is fast. Lego, her first official single, following the requisite years of mixtapes and YouTube videos, is a creditable crack at a homegrown Minaj, and certainly the first one by a Birmingham MC (and, critically, some of the Brum burr is left in). It's got some of the flash and elan of her peer/heroine, a sprinkle of the surreal humour, with two things specifically – a lightning-quick dancehall delivery on some of the verses and some dubstep wobble-bass – marking this out as a British take on a US sound: the future-rap sound Missy pioneered more than a decade ago with Timbaland. There are echoes of Missy 2001, of Get Ur Freak On and Lick Shots, with a playful chuckle and some "ra!"s from the latter (via Roman's Revenge).

We've never actually produced anyone like Missy over here, have we? So credit to Leshurr for trying. The production from Wizzy Wow (Wretch 32, Chipmunk) is clear, detailed, crisp ("Turn up the bass and don't forget to raise the treble," she instructs him, and he dutifully obliges), and the rhymes are just as sharp ("Got so many bars that my lyrics need sentencing"). The other new track by her, Boom Boom, feels grime-ier, but it's interesting to hear it rendered with a female voice. Comprising four dramatic chords over which she boasts in what we'd assumed was a studio-tweaked squeak until we saw her in her bedroom (not literally – here) using what turns out to be her natural speaking voice, Boom Boom is another burst of confident, colourful zing-hop, a genre we've just made up, so delighted are we at finding a new UK female rapper who is so unworthy. Not unworthwhile – un-worthy.